After having dropped out of Yonhi College due to poor health and being briefly associated with the March 1st Movement for the independence of Korea, Chu attended a faith meeting of Kim Ik-du [ko].

After his death, the South Korean government has given recognition for him, including conferring upon him Order of Merit for National Foundation, Third Class.

In 1912 he moved on to Osan School,[3] a hotbed of both Korean nationalism and Christianity that were agitated there by Lee Seung-hoon [ko] and Cho Man-sik.

[5] But after having attended a faith meeting hosted by Kim Ik-du [ko],[2] and allegedly regaining his sight there,[6] he chose to pursue a different path.

[8][9] During the time of Chu's ministry, Korea was under Japanese occupation and the occupiers demanded Korean Christians to pay homage to Shinto shrines [ko].

[11] There he broadened the scope of his campaign against forced shrine visits making it a nationwide movement whose center was Sanjunghyun Church.

Chu began to be considered the successor of Gil Seon-ju as the leader of the Presbyterian movement in Korea.

[13] That same month Chu was arrested again, briefly, to keep him out of the general assembly of the Korean Presbyterian Church that the Japanese authorities forced to accept Shinto practice.

[13] In August 1940, a Japanese pastor dispatched by the government gave a speech in Chu's Sanjunghyun Church.

[15] The Japanese retaliated, ordering the Pyongyang Presbytery [ko] to relieve him of his pastoral duties and expel his family from church property.

[13] In 1990, Chu was posthumously awarded the South Korean Independence Medal (Order of Merit for National Foundation, Third Class).

In 2007, the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs chose him as Independence Fighter of the Month [ko] for November, marking the 110th anniversary of his birth.